A Single Step: Day One

Hi friends. I have decided to write about the experience of recording my first music CD as a way of recording the experience and sharing it with folks who might be interested. I was moved by the number of people who generously donated to my GoFundMe campaign, and a lot of others have expressed an interest. So this blog will be sort of a musical diary through the recording and release of my first ever EP. A Single Step.

Today I would like to offer a little background for the uninitiated, talk about my first day of recording, and what comes next,'

For those who don't know my name is Dan Leyes (Dan Lee on Facebook). I am a 56 year old college professor, musician and songwriter. I did not play in public until 2017. My first attempt at a "public" performance was playing an original song ("Waiting for Love") at the Brookdale Community College Talent Show.

A few months later I saw an advertisement for the Songwriter's Showcase at the Jersey Shore Arts Center in Neptune NJ. When I inquired about how they selected their acts I was told to simply submit a link to my web page so she could hear some of my music/ Of course I did not have a web page, so I quickly threw one together and created a couple of you tube videos with my iPad to upload.

The woman who ran the Showcase, Janet Rothstein, listened to a few of my songs and welcomed me to come play. It had to be all originals (no covers!). I played a few weeks later (September 29th 2017) and also became the house Sound engineer. In that role I have met countless great songwriters and musicians. So when I started to think about recording I had a lot of choices to consider.

I chose to work with Texas native Jonathan Tea. Apart from being a talented musician, composer, and producer he is also a really great guy. I know the stress involved in recording from my years in the music business working with legendary Staten Island Rocker, Jimmie Mack. And given my inexperience as a performer, my producer's temperament will be as important to my success as his technical knowledge.

 Anyway our first day of recording was scheduled for January 8, 2019. We had decided to record it in the Herb Herbst Theater inside the Jersey Shore Arts Center based on great acoustics. We got there and began to set up but quickly noticed a hissing type noise appearing to come from the ventilation system. Assuming we could turn off the system we got got completely set up all of the equipment. We then discovered that the sound could not be silenced. So we packed everything up to move to the Cafe Artiste room. We had already lost 2 hours of our four hour session by the time we get everything set up again.

Finally, we were ready to do some recording!

 I decided to start with the easiest song on the guitar, "Cannabis Blues". After a couple of bad takes I tweaked the guitar part a bit. I had recently changed it and decided I liked the original way better so I switched back. within a take or two after the switch we got a keeper take. It had a good feel too it, with a more energetic performance.

From there, with time slipping by quickly we moved to a second song, "A Single Step", which I expect will be the title cut. There were a couple of issues, that were born of my inexperience. I did not have the arrangement set in stone so we took some time working that out. Unfortunately each time we tried a take there was an issue. I would make a mistake, or someone would knock at the door, or some other disturbance prevented us from getting a good take. Before long the Cafe Artiste volunteers started to show up for that evening's showcase, and our recording day was finished.

All in all we only completed about 25% of the recording we had hoped to. Disappointing? Yes, of course. Still, I learned a lot. I will be better prepared for future sessions and we won't have the time-killing ventilation issues. I need to keep practicing, as time is money and we've already used a big chunk of both with little to show for it.

Thank God for the GoFundMe campaign since our recording time will likely double from what I had budgeted for, I can't thank those who donated enough!

Right now Jonathan is dressing up the Cannabis Blues take with some added touches. If all goes well we will be back at it soon. We've decided to just use Jon's studio rather than try to do the on-location thing. It was a nice idea but the logistics are tough. The theater is used for other things so availability is limited, etc. We will be fine. It's just going to take longer than I expected...which was to be expected I guess.

Thant's all for now. Peace.